


Odd Numbers Hot

by MisplacedReality



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, old west slang, slow burn lovin'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-13 10:51:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2147973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisplacedReality/pseuds/MisplacedReality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth was...all the games were rigged.  Right from the goddamn start.</p><p>It was just another job for her.  One with a great payout.  He'd gotten to the point that he had more in common with a giant metal lizard than he did with the people in his life.  Even their smallest steps carry them into a tide neither can escape.  The choices are hers to make, but can either of them live with the consequences?</p><p>Explorations and character studies within the events of Fallout: New Vegas, following the chronology of the game.  Created history for the Courier, tying it into the main game.  Gender swap for Caesar/Vulpes Inculta.  Rated for language, sex and occasional violence...eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

“Tell me again, momma.”

The woman chuckled, a raspy sound through her irradiated throat.  “How many times am I going to spin this yarn, child?”

This was their little ritual, the ghoul and the girl she’d claimed as her daughter.  The child smiled a huge toothless grin and answered as she always did.

“Just once more.”

The lights in the house sputtered once before going out.  The ghoul sighed, reaching for the gas lantern and it flared to life.  Ranger Station Alpha held a strict schedule with their generators and tended to changed the shut off schedule with little or no notice.  It made sense, given all the disputes over power allocation.  And since they’d illegally run some powerlines to their little shack, she wasn’t in a place to complain. 

“All right then, darlin’.”  She pushed the girl down onto the cot and pulled a tattered blanket up to the girl’s chin.  Gently, she brushed her fingers through the her hair, some of the strands catching on her blistered flesh.  “Just once more.  Then it’s off with Mr. Sandman for you.”

She giggled in delight and pulled the blankets up to her chin to show that she would do as her mother asked.

“Once upon a time, oh, I’d say six or seven years ago—“

“Six years three months and nineteen days!”

“Yes, thank you, child.  But remember, it’s rude to interrupt.”

The girl bit down on her finger to keep herself from talking again.  The ghoul smiled and patted her on the head.

“There now, where was I?  Oh, yes, just over six years ago, I was scavenging through what I thought should be an old warehouse.  Just looking for, oh, I don’t know.  Food, vacuum cleaners, whatever I could sell for parts.  And wouldn’t you know it, the danged place turned out to be a secret bunker!  Now who would’ve thought that?”

“You did, momma!”

“Well, not at first, child.  ‘Cause I’d been to that old warehouse more times than I could recollect.  But we’d had a run of earthquakes lately—little ones—and something must have shook loose.”

“That’s when you found the secret door.”

“I sure did.  Whole section of the of the brick torn clear away.  And there it stood, that massive round gear of a door and the Vault-Tec logo shining bold as brass.”

“How’d ya get the door open, momma?”

“You know as well as I do, dear heart.  Computers is just like people, only they speak their own language.  You just got to know how to talk to ‘em.”

“And boy howdy can you talk to ‘em.”

“Your old lady knows a thing or two about the contraptions.”  The ghoul smiled, relaxing into the familiar story.  They’d been through the tale so often, they both had it memorized, but she didn’t mind.  But if you had to relive one day, that was a good one—the day she finally found some meaning for this afterlife.

“A secret Vault-Tec storage facility.”  The ghoul went on.  “Not a proper Vault, mind you, but something untouched for over 200 years.  And here was me, the first to find it.  Boy, how my luck had changed.”

The girl giggled, burying her face in the dirty pillow.  “There was something special inside, huh, momma?”

“Sure was.  Most special thing to come into my life.  Not what I woulda thought, neither.”

“You thought it was going to be fancy new tech, huh?”

“Something like that was what I’d hoped.  Though, I’d guess it would be fancy _old_ tech, huh?  Never would have imagined what I did find.  A slew of pods all set up before the Great War.  Don’t know for sure what they hoped to accomplish—all the data files being burnt out they way they was—but if I had to hazard a guess, well, I’d say they planned to put everyone to sleep for a long time.  Powerful long.  And when all the dust and fallout had settled, they’d wake y’all up.”

“But something went wrong.”

“Sure did, sugar pie.  ‘Bout as wrong as it could go.  A malfunction somewhere along the way.  All the pods had gone dark and the people in them asleep for good.”

“All except one.”

“That’s right.  The best one of them all.  You was still in there, all snug and tight and just waiting for me to come along and rescue you.  Out of all the things that could have gone wrong…well, someone upstairs was looking out for you, child.  I was supposed to find you in that pod.  It was meant to be.”

“And that’s why you named me what you did, huh, momma?”  She wriggled under the covers, too excited to have reached her favorite part of the story.  “’Cause of the pod.”

“You betcha, hun.  All of ‘em gone dark, ‘cept the most special number….my lucky Six.”

 

 


	2. Firsts

“Hey, Six!”  Johnson Nash called, waving her over with a handful of papers.  “Got the perfect job for you.”

She tucked the cap into her pocket, the lukewarm sarsaparilla washing away the dust from the road.  “Oh, yeah?  Unless it’s to deliver a bar of soap to a tub, I ain’t interested.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I got dust places dust was not meant to be.”

“Six caps says you won’t pass this one up.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and snatched the papers from his hands.  A low whistle escape her lips.  “That many caps plus a ticket to Vegas?  Delivery only?”

“Pick it up, drop it off.  Wham-bam-thank you for the caps-ma’am.  And you’d be the sixth courier for the job.  How ‘bout that?  Courier Six named Six!”

He hooted at his own joke, slapping his knee.  She smiled at him, even though jokes about her name had gotten old long ago. 

“Why six couriers?”

Nash shrugged.  “Looks like a scatter shot job.”

She shook her head.  “That many caps…there’s got to be a reason.  Some kind of danger.”

“It’s the Mojave, sweetheart.”  He said, patting her arm.  “Bein’ alive is dangerous.”

If this job was legit, there’d be a change in her fortunes for the better.  Finally.    Ma used to say, when something sounded too good to be true, check the fine print for a rattler.  Even so, it was too sweet a chance to pass up.

“And what does that say about my life.”  She muttered.  “Where’s the package?”

 

 

*     *     *

 

Whiskey sloshed over the edge of the glass, her hand shaking as she brought it to her lips.  It’d been an hour now and they still hadn’t stopped shaking.  All the more reason to drink faster.

“Ya alright there, missy?”  Trudy asked, eyeing her suspiciously. 

“Ain’t nothing,” Six said, wincing at the burn of the alcohol in her throat.  She itched absently at the gauze around her head.  “Shoulder’s just hurting something powerful from that varmint rifle.”

It was a good enough excuse and Trudy bought it.  Good Springs was a tight knit town as far as the Mojave goes.  With one hell of a doctor.  She had a lot to be grateful for from them.  And now, here she was, desperately trying to keep secrets.  Six was no stranger to the Wasteland, to what it could do to a person’s morals.  She just never thought it would happen to her.

Being shot in the head had a way of making one trigger happy.

“That old thing have too much of a kick for ya?”  Sunny asked, sliding into the stool next to her.  Cheyenne huffed a bit, turning in circles before settling under the chair.  “I’m shocked it has enough in it to take out a bloatfly, let alone a gecko.  Damn thing’s about to fall apart.”

“It’ll do.”  Six said, voice tense. 

The image of his corpse came back to her, and the whiskey didn’t do much to help.  It lay there, empty eyes staring up her and blood as red as a Mojave sunset spilled everywhere, soaking through his shirt.  It didn’t really matter that he hadn’t given her a choice.  Robbery aside, she would have just let him take the stash.  But he’d just opened fire, no questions.  No conversation.  Would anyone realize he was gone?  Did he have family?  Would someone be after her next?  God, had she murdered someone’s father?

Six cleared her throat.  “You get many travelers ‘round these parts?”

Trudy and Sunny shared a look.  “What makes you ask?”

Before Six could answer, the door burst open, slamming against the walls.  They all looked toward the entryway and at the kid standing there trying way too hard to look tough.  He strutted into the bar.  Honest to god strutting, with his thumbs hooked into his belt and everything.  He sneered at them all and jabbed a finger at Trudy.

“You and me need  talk.”

Trudy took a deep breath, sharing a dark look with Sunny before stepping around the bar.  She waved the man over to a corner, her body language tense.  Sunny’s hand slipped inside her jacket and Six could see the flash of metal underneath her coat.  Her stomach went cold at the sight of it and the thought of killing again.

“Who is he?”  Six whispered, but Sunny just shook her head.

“Either you hand him over, or we burn this town to the ground!  You got it?”  The man shouted.

“We’re done.”  Trudy said, her voice like ice.  “Unless you’re gonna buy something, I suggest you leave.

He stormed off and shoving past a farmer on his way out of the saloon.

Trudy came back behind the bar, her cheeks pink with angry and her eyes flashing.  She wiped a cloth across the bar twice before tossing it against the wall and grabbed the radio on the back side of the counter.  After fiddling with the dials, it let loose a loud burst of static.  Six cringed and Trudy swore, yanking the dial off again and slamming the thing down on the bar.

“You know we’re going to have to do something about him.”  Sunny said, frowning at her.

“Hush, Sunny.”

“Men like him don’t just go away.  Even if we—“

“I said hush.”  Trudy snapped, giving Sunny a look that clearly said the conversation was over.

Six slid the radio to where she sat and popped the cover off, prodding at the wires underneath.  “Anything I can help with?”

Trudy sighed.  “Looks like our little town got dragged into a whole heap of trouble.”

The woman told her all about Ringo and the trouble with the Powder Gangers he’d brought along with him.  Six kept working on the radio while she spoke, tinkering and grabbing a few spare parts from her pack.  Before long, Six asked about the man in checkered coat and Trudy gave her all the info she knew.  Just like that.  Six sighed,  Momma had brought her up right, and if someone helps you, you try and help ‘em right back.

“Look, I ain’t sure what help I can be, but maybe I’ll have a chat with Ringo and see what’s what.”  Under her hands, the radio crackled to life and Mr. New Vegas  was reading the news.

“Well, how about that.  Thought I was out of luck after that Khan’s clumsiness.”

Six shrugged, draining her whiskey glass and heading toward the door.  “Machine’s got their own language.  Just got to know how to talk to ‘em.”

 

*     *     *

 

Daylight filtered under the curtain over his window and trailed across the bed sheets.  The motel room stank of bleach.  Since Carla went missing, he’d kept the place immaculate.  Scrubbed every tile.  Vacuumed every inch.  He didn’t give a lot of thought to why he cleaned.   It wasn’t like she was coming back.  It was just…something to do.

Boone sat at the only table in the room, his rifle stripped before him and he meticulously cleaned each piece of Mojave dust off his weapon.  It was well passed noon.  He should be asleep.  Over twenty hours had gone by since he last slept.  Anytime he closed his eyes, he just saw her face in the cross hairs.

_“What’s with the long face, baby boy?”  She asked, eyes heavy with sleep._

_“Nothing to worry yourself over.”  He said, laying a kiss on the top of her head._

_“You livin’ for today, husband?  Ain’t stuck in the past?”_

_A smile tugged at his lips.  “No ma’am.”_

_“Good.”  She said, snuggling back down with her pillow.  “Wake me up a couple hours before your shift.  We’ll have ourselves some marital bliss.”_

Oil spattered onto the table and he stared at the droplets, lost in a far away time.  This moment, this day had been stretching on for months now.  Nothing had changed in his life since she’d been taken from him.  Like that fucking metal dinosaur he spent his life inside of.

“It’s nothing less than you deserve.”  He reminded himself.

With great care, he put all the pieces of his rifle back together and cleaned the table spotless.  His clothes he removed and folded neatly before laying them in the hamper.  Tonight would be no different than any of the others.  In a few hours we’d wake, clean and dress himself, walk amongst the people who had betrayed his wife and spend the night in a dinosaur.

He laid down next to his rifle and sighed.

“Something’s got to give.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been watching a few Lets Plays on YouTube to refresh myself on dialogue and whatnot and maybe I should point a bit of this out, since none of the videos had the scene I'm referencing. It can be easy to miss. Just after you've finished with the tutorial bit with Sunny, there's another man on the hill who claims he and his wife were attacked by geckos up by the radio tower and he fled to find help. You follow his direction and, shockingly, he lied. He just wanted you to clear out geckos hanging out near a cache. After you kill the lizards, he attacks you to try and take it for himself. I took the spin on this Courier that it was her first human kill. Hope that came across well.


	3. Cold, Cold Heart

“This game doesn’t make any goddamn sense.” 

Ringo chuckled and took a swig from his sarsaparilla as Six threw down the cards in disgust.  Person to person, they’d gotten off to a rocky start, but after a few rounds of some incomprehensible card game called Caravan, he’d opened up a bit.  Gotten friendly, even.

“You know there’s a bunch of Powder Gangers out there looking for you.”  Six said, pulling a pack of smokes from her side pocket.

Ringo sighed and lit her cigarette.  “Yeah.  If it were just that one little shit, Joe Cobb, I wouldn’t be bothered by it.  He knows I’d pop his head off if he gets too close to my window.”

“Which is why he’s hassling Trudy.”

Ringo frowned at the grime covered ground, swirling the liquid inside his bottle.  “Yeah.  And I don’t reckon I’ll fare too well if I take on the whole lot of ‘em.  Not without a hell of a lot more holes in me than I’d like.  Which is none.”

Six inhaled deeply, smoke burning a trail of fire through her lungs.  Her thoughts drifted to Ranger Palmer, the NCR soldier that looked out for her and momma.  She’d been in a tough spot.  The other Rangers wanted nothing to do with a ghoul and an orphan.  Palmer had taken pity on them, though Six was never really sure why.  The woman had a silver tongue and somehow managed to convince the Rangers to keep an eye on their shack just outside the station. 

At first, momma wasn’t much more relieved than when they’d been on their own.  Some of the Rangers looked downright nasty and pissed off at the idea of wasting any bullets keeping the two safe.  But Palmer worked her charm and Momma kept making her Molerat stew or fixing their busted equipment, and before long, the other Rangers got friendly.  Their patrol route stopped being a chore and instead became a social call.  They’d all chat with momma, taught Six how to shoot a gun or swapped recipes for various things, food or otherwise. 

Somehow, Palmer had turned her and momma into something that brought the Rangers together.  Made them stronger. 

“Maybe you can’t take them on your own, but what if you had help?”

“Yeah,” he grunted.  “Should I call up Mr. New Vegas and see if he’s free?”

“How about the townsfolk all around you, dumbass.”

Ringo scratched at his chin, ignoring the insult.  “Yeah.  I guess that could do it.  Might even scare Cobb into a better—smarter—frame of mind.  But I don’t want to put folks in danger.  They been good to me.”

“This is the Mojave, man.”  Six said, crushing the filter into the cement.  “If Good Springs doesn’t stand up to these Powder Gangers now, next time they may not have help from the likes of us.”

“And what sort of folk are you suggesting we are?”

“Folks who get a job done and survive.”  Six said, unable to meet his eyes.

“What do you care about Good Springs?”  He asked, studying her through the haze of smoke.  “And what’s with the bandage on your head?”

Six scratched at the white gauze.  “Guess you could say I had a run of 24 karat bad luck.  Doc Mitchell fixed me up good.  I suppose I want to repay him for the bang-up job he did.”

Which was more or less true.  Real truth was, Six couldn’t quite nail down her motivations.  Getting the chip back should be her main focus.  Maybe it was what would happen once she tracked that black-and-white checkered suit bastard down that made her a bit nervous to chase after him.  What would she do?  Kill him?  Shoot him in the head for some justice?  That didn’t sit too well with her.

Six sighed and scrubbed the dust from her face.  “Why don’t I talk to some of the towns folk for you?  This show down is going to happen one way or another.  We might as well have an advantage.”

He studied her for a minute and shrugged.  “Worth a shot.” 

Six cringed at his phrasing.  Just before she left the old gas station, he placed a hand on her arm.

“Hey, Six, right?  Thanks.  Not a lot of people in the Mojave would stick their neck out for a stranger.”

“Well, here’s hoping for a new Mojave.”

 

 

The sun baked rocks gave off more heat than a spent laser pistol clip.  Which was a good thing, since all Six had with her was a loaded duffle—currently doubling as a pillow—the clothes on her back and the gun at her hip.

“Note to self,” she muttered to the night air and rummaged through the pack under her head.  “Steal a bedroll from the next bus that I find.  Seems like they’re damn everywhere until you need one.”

Talking to herself in the middle of the Wasteland wasn’t a good sign.  She’d been spending too much time around people and Good Springs made resting a bit too easy.  The life of a Courier was a lonely one, and Six preferred it that way.

Thing had gone better than could have been hoped for at Good Springs.  Some of Ranger Palmer’s skills must have rubbed off on her.  Sunny had been easy to convince and once Trudy was on board the rest of the town weren’t as scared to stand up for themselves. 

Except for that damned old coot with the explosives.  Just ‘cause Six might’ve blown off her hand didn’t mean he couldn’t have helped a bit.

Six hadn’t been looking forward to the confrontation with the Powder Gangers.  But once Joe Cobb saw Ringo and the whole town there to back him up, he turned tail and ran like he couldn’t get out of Good Springs fast enough.  It actually couldn’t have gone better.  The whole town had cheered and threw a party.  Ringo hadn’t wanted to, but Six talked him into to letting the townsfolk—and Ringo—have a bit of fun.

Later, back at the gas station, she’d talked him into having more than a bit of fun.  Being nearly dead and fighting off a gang had left her excited and full of energy she couldn’t cage.  A tumble with Ringo worked off the steam and for the first night since she’d woke up with a new hole in her head, she slept well.  They’d traveled together a few miles before their paths split and Six promised she’d look him up with the Crimson Caravan if she had the chance.

Her fingers closed around the cube in her pack.  Not a lot of things had lasted her whole life.  Not even her own head, now.  But her Momma had given her this toy as a reward when she first learned how to hack a terminal.  At the time, it was the greatest thing she could have imagined, even though it was simple as could be.  Just a cube broken up into smaller cubes with different colors.  A silly kid’s toy from before pip-boys and comp terminals could provide more advanced entertainment.

A familiar ache settled into her belly whenever she thought about her momma.  For so long, their life had been normal.  Well, as normal was a ghoul and an ancient war orphan squatting near an NCR base could be.

Maybe not normal, but they’d had a routine, at any rate.

Hot air raced across her face, drying the tears still in her eyes.  What would momma think of her now?  Not that momma had raised her with any illusions about the Mojave.  Hell, she was the one that taught Six to sharp shoot.  And the filter of adulthood put those nights momma told her to close her eyes and plug her ears in a new perspective.  Didn’t make sense that a person could survive as long as momma had and not see a little bloodshed. 

Six couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed within her.  A kind of door opened somewhere in her head that she’d never get shut again.  And the question of whether or not that was a good thing kept scratching at that door.

Hot wind blew over her again, more insistent.  Something settled on her face and she rubbed at her cheek.  Her fingers came away covered in ash.

“What the hell?”

She stood and slung her pack over her shoulder.  A slight hill crested not far from where she’d made camp and, if her Pip Boy were accurate, Nipton was the next closest settlement.  What she saw turned her stomach sour.

How had she missed the plume of smoke stretching toward the stars?  Fires in the Mojave weren’t that common on account of there being nothing to burn.  ‘Cept the buildings.  And the people.  From this distance she couldn’t see much, but it looked like the town had been burning for a while.  Radio said the town had gone quiet a few weeks ago.  Guess now she knew why.

Six sighed, tapping her hat against her thigh.  Should she go check it out or pass the whole mess by?  The water in her trusty Vault 13 canteen was running pretty low.  Reserves in her pack weren’t much better.  And if the guy in the checkered suit was headed to Novac, he’d have to head through here.  Maybe whatever had happened in Nipton would save her the trouble of figuring out what to do with him. 

Plus, there might be someone that needed help.  She cared about that, too.  A little. 

“Or there could be more people that want to shoot me in the head.”  She muttered as she slid down the slope.

It took about an hour to make it to town.  She didn’t meet anyone else until she hit the outskirts of the town entrance.  Then some lunatic ran past screaming about winning the lottery.  Six watched him go with a growing sense of dread.  The smell this close to town was nearly overwhelming and she had to stop for the gagging.  But she knew she’d regret it if she didn’t see it through to the end, even though every bit of her concerned with self preservation told her to turn tail and run.

As she rounded the corner, Six thought she could have lived just fine with that regret. 

Bodies, hung up on crosses, lined the path toward the center of town, like some kind of macabre garland.  Six covered her mouth and nose, part out of horror and part because of the smell.  Ages passed before she worked up the nerve to keep moving.  Heat from the fires all over town pushed in on her and Six’s head swam.  She stopped next to the first cross and looked up at the man.  What sort of monsters would do this?  Like she didn’t know the answer…

“Help…me…”

Six gasped and leapt away from the cross, pulling her gun.  Which was silly, once she realized the speaker was the man on the cross, but her wobbly aim didn’t really care about that.  On closer look, she saw they were all still alive.  For a little while, at any rate.  It didn’t look like they’d be alive for long.  There wasn’t anything she could do for them, not on her own and not without a ladder.

This was bad.  Very bad.  Six kept moving, tears blinding her eyes and her gun hand shaking.  She needed to get out.  To get away.  As she approached the large building, the doors opened and red-clad soldiers streamed out.  Six’s blood ran cold.

She brought up her gun aiming it at one soldier then another.  But there were too many.  Their dogs circled her, growling low and menacing.  A last figure emerged from the doors, walking slowly down the stairs toward Six.  She was huge, taller than any woman Six had ever seen.  Her armor glistened in the firelight and the wolf’s head she wore over her own cast long shadows on her face.

A sob escaped from Six as the woman approached her and she dropped her pistol in the dirt.  She was beat and she knew it.  All of Doc Mitchell’s hard work was about to go to waste.

She stopped in front of Six, head high and a the sort of smile on her face Six had seen on card players that cheated to win.  The woman was even more imposing up close where Six could see that every bit of her exposed skin was taught muscle and littered with scars.  She prowled around Six, whose knees nearly buckled when the woman trailed a hand across her shoulders.

“Don’t worry.”  The woman said, her voice cold and sensual.  “I won’t have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates.  It’s useful that you happened by.”

She came to a stop in front of Six, standing uncomfortably close.  “I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton, to memorize every detail.  And then, when you move on?”

She leaned close, her words brushing air across Six’s neck.  “I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar’s Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across.”

Six let out the breath she’d been holding as the woman turned her back on the courier.  For the Legion to be this far out of their territory, the NCR’s hold on the area was weaker than she’d realized.  Despite that fact and the fear that pulsed through her, the question burned on her lips and she’d never been close enough to a live Legionairie to ask.  Least ways not one that wanted to keep _her_ alive.  Her mouth formed the words but no sound came out.

_Do you know about my momma?”_

“What’s that little one?”  The solider turned back around and snapped her next words.  “Speak up.”

“Wh-what lessons did you teach them?”  Six said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

The woman giggled at her, like the answer was obvious.

“Where to begin?  That they are weak, and we are strong?  That all men will fall under Caesar’s power.  This much was already known.”

She said Caesar’s name like a prayer and glared at the men strung up on the crosses, a look of disgust on her face.

“But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution?  Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson.”

“What happened here?”  Six asked, her voice getting ever so slightly stronger.

And the woman told her, but it didn’t make much sense to Six.  The way she told the story, they’d been a town of slavers, of immoral heathens.  Which didn’t sound too different from the rest of the Mojave.  And it really didn’t sound much different than the Legion itself.  But Six hadn’t lived this long without learning when to keep her mouth shut. 

“I told them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty.”  There was no sense of triumph in her voice, just contempt.  “I told them when Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished, the others made to watch.  And I announced the Lottery.

“They did nothing.”  She turned to Six and looked…confused?  “Even as their ‘loved ones’ were pulled from their arms to be slaughtered.  They clutched their tickets in trembling hands, their grasp of the danger they were in as feeble as their minds.  We were outnumbered nearly three to one and still they did not fight us.  Fear made them weak.”

“You killed innocent civilians?”

“Innocent?”  She laughed.  “Hardly.  They stood and watched their fellows burn one by one.  They stood and hoped their turn would not come.  Each cared only for himself.  Those that are unwilling to fight for what they love are unworthy of having it.”

Flawed logic, but logic.  Six could work with that.  She was still scared shitless, but as long as she played her cards right, she would survive this encounter.

“What is your decision, child?”  She reached out and brushed red stained fingers across Six’s cheek.  “

Six shivered, hating herself for it.  “I’ll do what you ask…but, who are you?”

“I am Vulpes Inculta, of Caesar’s Legion.”  She said, resting her fingers and her gaze on Six’s lip.  “I serve my mistress as the greatest of her Frumentarii—soldiers of a different stripe.  Vital to my mistress’ cause.”

“Which is?”

“To bring order to this morally depraved wasteland.  To rectify the sins men have wrought upon this world and birth a new order.  One free of men’s corruption.  We shall purify this world.”

“And you take slaves?”

“A necessary part of the cleansing.”  She said with no sense of remorse or shame.  “Their service to the greater cause is their reward.”

Six licked her lips, heart hammering in her chest.  “What about ghouls?”

Vulpes grimaced and pulled away from the Courier.  “Never.”

Six exhaled and closed her eyes.

“Not if I had my say in the matter.  Caesar feels differently on their…ancient wisdom.”

Six looked at the woman, hope stabbing through her.  There was a chance after all.

“And what is it you are truly asking me, I wonder.”  Vulpes pulled a pair of sunglasses from her waistband and cleaned them on Six’s shirt before putting them on, somehow only looking more terrifying by wearing them at night.  “Is it a reunion you’re after?  How foolish.”

Six stared at the ground, her faced flushed at having been so easily seen through.  “Just curious,” she mumbled.

Vulpes reached out a hand, slowly, unstoppably toward Six’s throat.  Her fingers closed around the sensitive flesh and squeezed.  Not hard, not enough to choke her, but enough to send Six’s pulse racing.  Enough to terrify and enough to make Six feel shame that she did nothing to try and stop the woman.

“Lies are not welcome in Caesar’s domain.”  She said, her voice low in Six’s ear, sending a tingle through the base of her skull.  “You are lucky.  Lucky that you are useful to me and lucky that I am weary of punishing sins.”

Her grasp on Six’s neck became uncomfortably tight before it slid away.  The warrior whistled, a long and high-pitched note, and the dogs and soldiers all gathered and began their march out of town.  Six had a sinking feeling that this was only the beginning of what she’d see of the Legion.  And certainly  not the last of Vulpes Incluta.  The woman gave her one last look over before she joined her soldiers. 

They left her standing alone in the dust.  Had she really just survived an encounter with the Legion?  Not just that, a Frumentarrii.  She wouldn’t call it luck, more of a miracle that she still breathed free.  Tires and worse burned all around her and every now and then a moan from one of the crucified.  Tears streamed down her face and all she could do was wipe them away.  It was just too much to take in.

Six entered the Town Hall, trying to keep her mind occupied.  There was plenty enough to search in the building and some terminals to hack.  There she found the record of what Vulpes Incluta had talked about.  The citizens of the town, all of them, worked toward pitting the NCR and Powder Gangers against each other.  When they weren’t busy abusing the girls that worked for them, they lied and cheated to keep the tensions high and the soldiers coming back.  Six felt sick.

Back outside the Town Hall she sank onto one the steps and stared at the scene around her.  “And how am I supposed to tell people about this?”  She muttered under her breath.

It just wasn’t possible to put into words.  It was too horrible.  Too cruel.  And didn’t it just make her sick that the somewhere inside her head, she was glad it wasn’t her.  Had the Mojave Express job gone to plan, she very likely could’ve been in Nipton when the Legion hit.  Better still, there was a chance momma was still alive.  Not a good one, but a chance.

“…please…”

Six sighed.  She knew what she had to do.  Didn’t make doing it any easier.

The pistol still sat in the dirt a few feet from the steps.  Leaving it behind had been a fool move.  Forgetting about it entirely, even worse.  Six had been through a lot the last couple weeks.  She would blame it on that.

It felt heavy in her hand and she walked toward the nearest cross.  The broken and bloodied body looked like it might’ve once been a man.  Its one good eye looked down at her and blood bubbles gathered on its lips.

“…help..pl-I…I can’t…I don’t…”

Six raised the pistol, her aim frighteningly steady.

“Last week, I’d never killed anyone.  Now I’m about to go on a killing spree. “

She sighed.

“…no…don—”

Six pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gender swap! I've never written a gender swap fic before. But I was always a bit disappointed of the lack of female characters in the larger plot of the game. And the Legion bothered me with just their blatant evilness. There wasn't enough drive behind their cause to make them interesting as villains or as such a large collection of people. So I've tweaked them a bit. Hopefully the female led Legion will provide a bit more interest as antagonists. I'll be playing with the philosophy more later on in the story.
> 
> Also, I have a computer back! My laptop battery and charger died and I had to wait for new ones to arrive. It was torture! I missed you internet...


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